Insulating container



June 11, 1963 w. L. MORRISON INSULATING CONTAINER 2 Sheets-Sheet 1 FiledMarch 3, 1960 mm? wmx 2M 0 K r 4A APA m June 11, 1963 w. L. MORRISONINSULATING CONTAINER 2 Sheets-Sheet 2 Filed March 5, 1960 INVENTOR.Man/r0 Aimee/ea United States Patent 3,093,259 INSULATING CONTAINERWillard L. Morrison, Lake Forest, 111., assignor to Liquefreeze Company,Inc., New York, N.Y., a corporation of New York Filed Mar. 3, 1960, Ser.No. 12,559 1 Claim. (Cl. 220-9) My invent-ion relates to improvements ininsulated shipper containers and has for one object to provide a shippercontainer for the shipment of frozen food and the like, the temperatureof which has been lowered far below zero degrees F.

Another object of the invention is to provide a shipper container whichmay be disassembled and collapsed for return shipment.

Another object is to provide a shipper container which will cushion thecontents and which will receive little if any damage from shocks orrough handling.

Shipper containers now available usually include an outer shell, aninner shell and fixed insulating material between the shells with aremovable door through both shells and the insulation so that thecontainer may be filled and emptied. Such containers are usually ofmetal and as a result are heavy and expensive and easily damagedespecially in cargo handling from ship to dock and the like. A containerinsulated for long distance shipment of frozen food may for a six footcube of frozen food require twelve inches of insulation so that thecontainer itself is an eight foot cube which cube must be when unloaded,returned to destination.

This invention includes a demountable shipper container where forexample a cubic mass of frozen food may be enclosed in a built upshipper container which includes six edge engaging insulating panelsremovably held together and so disposed that when destination has beenreached the panels may be disconnected, stacked or baled one on top ofanother for return shipment, requining greatly reduced space.

My invention is illustrated more or less diagrammatically in theaccompanying drawings, wherein- FIGURE 1 is a perspective of the shippercontainer with cover about to be applied;

FIGURE 2 is an exploded view of the shipper container of FIGURE 1;

FIGURE 3 shows the container collapsed and the panels piled for returnshipment;

FIGURE 4 is a plan view of one of the six panels which can be assembledtogether to make the shipper container;

FIGURE 5 is a section along the line 5-5 of FIG- URE 4;

FIGURE 6 is an edge view of the panel.

Like parts are indicated by like characters throughout the specificationand drawings.

The shipper container preferably comprises six selfcontained parallelwalled panels 1, removably pinned together edge to edge to form a box asindicated in FIGURE 1. In using this device, five of the panels will bepinned together as shown in FIGURE 1, the container will be filled withpackages of frozen food and the sixth panel will be pinned in place tocomplete the container. This results in a cubic box container incondition for shipment.

When destination has been reached, the panels will be unpinned, thefrozen food will be removed, the container panels will be laid one onthe other in a thin fiat mass and may be baled together for shipment asindicated in FIGURE 3.

The rectangular panels 1 are identical and interchangeable. Each panelincludes an outer wall 2, an inner "ice wall 3, inclined peripheralwalls 4 joining the outer to the inner smaller walls. The inner andouter walls are parallel, the peripheral walls are at approximately aforty-five degree angle with respect to the inner and outer walls. Eachperipheral inclined wall carries an elastomeric cushion 5 so that whenthe panels are pressed together and pinned as indicated by the use ofremovable pins 6 passing through the eyelets 7, a tight structureresults. The elastomeric packing makes a close joint between each pairof opposed panels.

This assembly resembles to some extent the assembly of my co-pendingapplication Serial No. 790,655 filed February 2, 1959, but the make upof the individual panels is quite different and will now be described.

Each panel comprises a block of foamed plastic 8. This block is parallelsided and chamfe'red about its edges to conform to the peripheralcontour above indicated. Each block of foamed plastic is enclosed in anenvelope 9 of gas tight material, of the type which does not preferablychange its physical characteristics and is not embrittled in thepresence of temperatures as low as the temperature of liquid nitrogen atatmospheric pressure, namely --32() degrees F. This envelope closelyfits the block. The eleyets 7 outside the envelope are attached to theblock in any suitable manner, for example, by cementing them to theenvelope.

A vacuum Valve 10 is disposed within each block extending through theenvelope 9. The vacuum block 10 may well be a typical automobile tireSchrader valve but reversed so that when the panels are assembled, avacuum may be drawn extracting gas from the interstices within thefoamed plastic and from the entire mass inside the envelope. This putseach block under a substantial atmospheric pressure tending to r-igidifythe structure. It also increases the K factor of the insulation becausethe gases, whatever they may be, in the interstices between the bubblesor beads of the foamed plastic are withdrawn, thereby increasing theinsulation elfectiveness.

This invention has been illustrated as a cubic box and this makes itpossible for the separate panels to be identical and interchangeable.The same principle may be used with boxes of other shape or with panelsnot identical. Some of the panels might be edge to edge in the sameplane instead of being at right angles to one another. Under thesecircumstances the mating edges or edge walls would be perependicularrather than inclined but as a general proposition :a rectanguilar cubeis considered better, is easier to assemble and generally moreeflective.

A suitable material for the core is styrene Dyalite a foaming plasticwhich occurs with sometimes air and sometimes Freon in the beads butwith air in the clearances or spaces around the bead. When the vacuum isdrawn, it may be left as a vacuum or may be broken by admitting Freon,the envelope being then closed. Under these circumstances the danger oflosing a vacuum through puncturing or something of the sort or throughleakage, osmosis and the like is reduced to a minimum because if thevacuum is broken by Freon," there is no pressure differential as thereis when the vacuum. alone is relied on.

If the core is made of other insulating material such as balsa wood, thevacuum may still be maintained or broken by Freon as the case may be.One advantage of the vacuum when such insulation as balsa is used isthat the pressure, the vacuum being held, tends to hold the coretogether and may under some circumstances even permit the core, beingloosely assembled, held in place by the pressure with the vacuum drawnwithout the necessity of gluing the parts together.

The Wrapper or envelope may Well be made of Ediprene which is gasimpervious and retains its strength and temperatures down as far as--320 degrees F.

I claim:

An insulated, knock down, shipping container comprising a plurality ofpanels of identical shape and dimension detachably joined one to anotherat adjacent edges to form the container, each panel comprising a stiff,porous, one-piece, self-supporting, foamed plastic core bounded onopposite sides by parallel symmetrical inner and outer faces with theouter face being larger than the inner face, and bounded peripherally byperimetric faces inclined approximately at a forty-five degree angle tothe parallel inner and outer faces, a flexible elastomeric gas tightenvelope enclosing the panel in engagement with all of the faces butunattached thereto, means for drawing a vacuum in the envelope wherebyatmospheric pressure forces the envelope to conform with the adjacentsurfaces of the faces and to be drawn into intimate continuous contactwith the panel throughout its entire exposed area, an elastomeric memberperipherally enclosing the panel to cover the entire perimetric surfacesof the panel, removable means carried by the envelope, extendinglaterally from the outer face of the panel, on all four sides thereof,arranged for locking a pair of such panels in removable edge to edgecontact assembly.

References Cited in the file of this patent UNITED STATES PATENTS1,172,445 Field Feb. 22, 1916 2,502,581 Morrison Apr. 4, 1950 2,552,641Morrison May 15, 1951 2,817,123 Jacobs Dec. 24, 1957 2,817,124 DybvigDec. 24, 1957 2,867,035 Patterson Ian. 6, 1959 2,952,379 Potter Sept.13, 1960 2,961,116 Jeppson Nov. 22, 1960

